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Espionage Quotes

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Espionage Quotes

“Women haven't been allowed into the Academy for the last fifty years. I could waste six months trying to develop her for nothing. I think I should concentrate elsewhere." Gable leaned farther into the room past Forsyth's shoulder. "That's right, think it all through." He laughed. "Are you fucking kidding me? A knockout like that, plus a close relative to someone on the top floor of the SVR? You better check it out, good and hard. Never mind going after someone else. This is a fucking ripe plum just waiting to get plucked.”

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Book:Red Sparrow
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“The night had teeth. Wind tore through the apple trees, their skeletal branches clawing at the sky. Beyond the garden fence, the dacha settlement lay in uneasy slumber—rows of dark shacks, abandoned for the season, their windows blind and cold. Chicken-wire fences sagged under rust and neglect, some topped with barbed wire that glinted like fangs in the distant glow of Moscow. Far off, a cement plant loomed against the horizon, a hulking silhouette of Soviet ambition gone to rot. To the north, the pines of Elk Island groaned under the gale, their black crowns thrashing like beasts in chains. And above it all, the October sky churned with torn clouds, racing toward some unseen war. I walked two hundred yards down the gravel drive, past sleeping plots fenced in rusted wire, boots rasping over dry, dead grass. Tested the radio. Exchanged a few words with Romeo. Static hissed like a snake in the dark, but the signal held.”

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Book:Last Tango in Moscow: A Cold War Tale of Espionage, the Mafia, and Forbidden Love
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“Welcome to my Goodreads author page! Thank you for stopping by. My new thriller, THE DEVIL DRAGON PILOT is now available. If you are new to where aviation meets espionage, this is an excellent place to begin. I have also created a website, complete with a Group Readers Guide and Photos at ColbyAviationThrillers and hope you will stop in. While visiting, you can sign up for my newsletter and receive a special Devil Dragon gift. Thank you for all of your support!”

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Author:Lawrence Colby
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“...I remembered how Philby's enemy, [T.E.] Lawrence, refused his country's decorations, and later even a commission in the R.A.F., and enlisted as a simple airman. In 1940 this seemed irresponsible and hysterical to me. But by 1945 I had seen a score or more British and Americans on the verge of treason through similar bitterness. . . . By 1945 I grew to understand the Philby-Lawrence reaction and to consider such men, and their honour, as casualties of war -- for war cares no more for honour, or for decency and honesty, than it does for life.”

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Book:The Scarlet Thread: Adventures in Wartime Espionage
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“Playing pool with Korean officials one evening in the Koryo Hotel, which has become the nightspot for foreign businessmen and an increasing number of diplomats (to say nothing of the burgeoning number of spies and journalists traveling under second identities), I was handed that day's edition of the Pyongyang Times. At first glance it seemed too laughable for words: endless pictures of the 'Dear Leader'—Little Boy's exalted title—as he was garlanded by adoring schoolchildren and heroic tractor drivers. Yet even in these turgid pages there were nuggets: a telegram congratulating the winner of the Serbian elections; a candid reference to the 'hardship period' through which the country had been passing; an assurance that a certain nuclear power plant would be closed as part of a deal with Washington. Tiny cracks, to be sure. But a complete and rigid edifice cannot afford fissures, however small. There appear to be no hookers, as yet, in Pyongyang. Yet if casinos come, can working girls be far behind? One perhaps ought not to wish for hookers, but there are circumstances when corruption is the only hope.”

United StatesJournalismPropagandaPoolDiplomacyProstitutionNorth KoreaEspionageCasinosSerbia2000Kim Jong IlPyongyangNorth Korea And WmdNorth Korean FamineKoryo HotelProstitution In North KoreaSerbian Election 2000The Pyongyang Times
Book:Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays
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“From 1966 to 1976 ... The primary cause in [the] decline in FBI counterespionage and counterintelligence cases was the ceaseless demand by Presidents Johnson and Nixon to focus on the political warfare against the American left.... - "Espionage Against the United States by American Citizens, 1947-2001, Defense Personnel Security Research Center, July 2002”

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Book:Enemies: A History of the FBI
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“The Agency taught me to fight terrorism by convincing my enemy that I’m scary. Zoë taught me to fight by taking off my mask and showing my enemy that I’m human. In that hallway, surrounded by metal vault doors that lead into giant airtight rooms of secrets, I know that both paths might lead to security, but only Zoë’s path leads to actual peace.”

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Book:Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA
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“The Communist threat from without must not blind us to the Communist threat from within. The latter is reaching into the very heart of America through its espionage agents and a cunning, defiant, and lawless communist party, which is fanatically dedicated to the Marxist cause of world enslavement and destruction of the foundations of our republic.”

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Author:J. Edgar Hoover
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“I have fantasy jobs like working in retail at a department store just selling rich housewives outfits and saying 'this looks fabulous on you! Let me find a matching handbag!' Then, the other is being like some sort of Vice or taskforce, law enforcement, undercover [person]. Or possibly someday becoming a guerilla activist - I'm kind of in-training for that now anyways. So, maybe my retirement will be jumping on ships, kidnapping, and [participating in] espionage. I still fantasize.”

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Author:Mike Ness
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